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Another playtest done, lots to write

Hey gang, I just wanted to throw out an update post saying that I did a hefty playtest last night, and the game’s getting a huge overhaul compared to the draft you’ve read. It’ll be a bit before I get a new version of the draft posted up, since I’m doing a complete re-write — which will also hopefully fix many of my language problems in the draft and allow me to highlight elements as an ashcan. So, you won’t be hearing from me about my own game for a few days, though I’ll still chime in on yours.

Jeff, I owe you some comments. I printed out your draft last Friday and promptly left it on my desk at work with other stuff, which is why I haven’t chimed in yet. I hope to remedy that by tonight so I can comment later tonight or early tomorrow.

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I don’t want to go too far into it, but we hammered out a lot of the kinks of the new, GM-less setup. One of the players took a lot of notes for me on his laptop about terms we used, processes that worked and didn’t, and new idea.

We removed some parts that didn’t work, like drawing one, two or three cards, and replaced it with other ideas. In the case of multiple player-draws, instead of drawing one, two or three, you draw one, and if you want to draw another you spend a non-refreshing currently in the game. You can spend all your draws on one conflict, thereby not having anymore for future ones. This feels a bit less contrived than the compromise idea I had. I don’t know if this paragraph will make sense without the new text, though.

We also hammered out what each role does and where the boundaries are. There are currently three roles:
Active Player — the person running the character.
Stage Manager — the person who sets the stage and frames the scene
Foil — the person who takes over at the chief antagonist narrator

To use Polaris as an example, the first role is the Heart and the third is the Mistaken. The second is performed by one of those two in Polaris, but imagine if instead one of the Moons — say the New Moon — set the scene each time, and that’s what the Heart & Mistaken had to work with.

That was a bit difficult at times (less so when we establishing what the Stage Manager does and cannot do), but turned into some really rewarding play.

Wow, yeah… “hefty” is indeed the word. I was envisioning the kind of calamity that I had, where you find out that you have to throw everything away, but instead this is when you put a lot of new stuff in. So yeah, I guess we don’t need stories about this test so much as a new draft to read.

Meet the Miners

We are fledgling game designers, each working on a single new design in public (but really working on it in this group… but really working on it in public). The complete current drafts (or as complete as they stand) are in the Projects page. We also tell you what we’re about and how we do things around here on the Mission Statement page.

Master Mines Reservists
These are Master Mines members who have moved into the Publishing phase and are busy with that work or who are taking a break from designing or have bowed out for various reasons. However, these Reserve Miners remain close friends of the group. Reservists can be called in at any time to fight in case of an interstellar invasion by receiving the call: “Master Miners Mobilize!”